Seriously, is there some way you could jury-rig a source of cool air to vent intothe boxes?

John Nagle wrote:

Evan Hillas wrote:

John Nagle wrote:

It's not the power supply. Tri-M is trying to figure outwhat's failing.

The problem seems to be airflow related; the packagingand fan positioning really don't match the motherboardwell.

It's airflow. We blew another NOVA-8890 during field testing.Temperature 42C at inlet, 68C at CPU heat sink, measuredwith an infrared temperature sensor immediately afterremoving the cover. The computer's spec said 70C, butthat turns out to be the board, not the systems as casedwith fans. It's in a little box about 1U high, butthe airflow wasn't well worked out. The exhaust fanfor the CPU blows at a steel cover about 5mm fromthe fan.So we're off to the DARPA Grand Challenge with onecomputer of three. One is on the vehicle, one is beingshipped back from Tri-M, and one is being shipped toTri-M for repair. The one on the vehicle is runningwith its top cover off. What's a good Pentium IV or faster x86machine withsolidly reliable industrial temperature and vibration ranges?When we picked these things two years ago there were fewoptions, but there must have been progress by now? Whatare people using for CPU-intensive embedded work in toughenvironments?

In retrospect, we should have used a stack of PanasonicToughbooks.John NagleTeam Overbot

Seriously, is there some way you could jury-rig a source of cool air tovent intothe boxes?

John Nagle wrote:Evan Hillas wrote:

John Nagle wrote:

It's not the power supply. Tri-M is trying to figure outwhat's failing.

The problem seems to be airflow related; the packagingand fan positioning really don't match the motherboardwell.

It's airflow. We blew another NOVA-8890 during field testing.Temperature 42C at inlet, 68C at CPU heat sink, measuredwith an infrared temperature sensor immediately afterremoving the cover. The computer's spec said 70C, butthat turns out to be the board, not the systems as casedwith fans. It's in a little box about 1U high, butthe airflow wasn't well worked out. The exhaust fanfor the CPU blows at a steel cover about 5mm fromthe fan.So we're off to the DARPA Grand Challenge with onecomputer of three. One is on the vehicle, one is beingshipped back from Tri-M, and one is being shipped toTri-M for repair. The one on the vehicle is runningwith its top cover off. What's a good Pentium IV or faster x86machine withsolidly reliable industrial temperature and vibration ranges?When we picked these things two years ago there were fewoptions, but there must have been progress by now? Whatare people using for CPU-intensive embedded work in toughenvironments?

In retrospect, we should have used a stack of PanasonicToughbooks. John NagleTeam Overbot

It's not the power supply. Tri-M is trying to figure outwhat's failing.

The problem seems to be airflow related; the packagingand fan positioning really don't match the motherboardwell.

It's airflow. We blew another NOVA-8890 during field testing.Temperature 42C at inlet, 68C at CPU heat sink, measuredwith an infrared temperature sensor immediately afterremoving the cover. The computer's spec said 70C, butthat turns out to be the board, not the systems as casedwith fans. It's in a little box about 1U high, butthe airflow wasn't well worked out. The exhaust fanfor the CPU blows at a steel cover about 5mm fromthe fan.So we're off to the DARPA Grand Challenge with onecomputer of three. One is on the vehicle, one is beingshipped back from Tri-M, and one is being shipped toTri-M for repair. The one on the vehicle is runningwith its top cover off. What's a good Pentium IV or faster x86machine withsolidly reliable industrial temperature and vibration ranges?When we picked these things two years ago there were fewoptions, but there must have been progress by now? Whatare people using for CPU-intensive embedded work in toughenvironments?

In retrospect, we should have used a stack of PanasonicToughbooks.John NagleTeam Overbot